I just got scammed by user Tastefultraders who gave me trading lead - email of Carl Lister from Condom Dot Com Ltd, (condomdotcom at outlook.com) and said he was supplier of Durex condoms. I contacted Carl and got very good offer, I ordered 60 000 condoms, received pro forma invoice and made the payment by bank wire transfer. The transfer took a couple of days during which I was in contact with Carl, he was answering my emails immediately, so was Tastefultraders. Once they got the payment the problems started. I was supposed to get tracking number but 2 days passed by and there was no sing of it and Carl stopped answering my emails. I wrote to Tastefultraders but he did not respond either. After 3 days and sending about 10 emails I got reply from condomdotcom at outlook.com, the person who sent it claimed she was Shonga Gillian, company's co-owner. She said that Carl Lister has quit his job and she would finalize my order. I checked the registration data for Condom dot com ltd, and it turned out that it has two owners indeed, but the name of one is Shona Gillian not Shonga. Now, who makes mistake writing their own name??? So the whole story of employee quitting his job sounded bogus, I asked alleged Shona to give me tracking number for shipment of my goods, company's VAT number and her tel number. Sure enough she did not respond ever again. So it's quite obvious I got scammed for over 4K. The question is what should I do now? I have the bank account number and proof of sending money to it, is there any chance to get my money back somehow?

We received your ticket regarding your woes in this thread, and I must explain to you that we are in quite a difficult position.

According to your report to us, this condomdotcom is also an advertiser in TWF as mentioned by @Tastefultraders . However we did a full search and that name and email, even the company, does not match any of our advertisers and even regular members. The best thing we could have to make sure that the company is indeed an advertiser is to know their username here in case they really are advertisers.

Moreover, you are pointing to @Tastefultraders , whom you said recommended them (The image attached at the bottom is the report of what the private message contains as proof). However, the person who recommended this company to you is also not an advertiser. Generally speaking, dealing with non advertisers is not allowed in TWF, and as part of that, external recommendations like tastefultraders has done can be treated as such. Because of how deep this issue is, we can suspend tastefultraders' account permanently but I believe it would be wise to have him post his say to this issue first as a reply, and in which perhaps, if he says that the company who scammed you is indeed an advertiser in TWF, we'll get a chance to get the perpetrator's username and open a refund case against them.

This is one of those cases in which I could say we really cannot do anything if the scammer is not a TWF advertiser, as we do not have business information records of non advertisers. With this reply I tagged tastefultraders in hopes he would reply to this thread to point us the username if the company is indeed an advertiser here.

In fairness it looks like @Tastefultraders merely recommended a company they have used in the past, and have no ties to the company so cannot really vouch for the future effectiveness of said company, they also said "they are also advertisers on this forum I think" (to me "I think" would suggest they are not sure?)

No disrespect but if that is means for a potential "permanent suspension" that could have serious repercussions regarding the level of help/recommendation that members may offer in the future as from the looks of it the OP hasn't been scammed by tasteful traders but by a company they recommended, however any company/business may have been fine in past transactions yet could turn sour later on (which essentially is no different to TWF's own policy regarding advertisers in that you cannot be held responsible for future problems/individual offers).

I do wish @MuWo all the best in getting some resolve from this, personally I would attempt to try establishing if these people are at the address mentioned then seeking legal action to try to recover your money.

In fairness it looks like @Tastefultraders merely recommended a company they have used in the past, and have no ties to the company so cannot really vouch for the future effectiveness of said company, they also said "they are also advertisers on this forum I think" (to me "I think" would suggest they are not sure?)

No disrespect but if that is means for a potential "permanent suspension" that could have serious repercussions regarding the level of help/recommendation that members may offer in the future as from the looks of it the OP hasn't been scammed by tasteful traders but by a company they recommended, however any company/business may have been fine in past transactions yet could turn sour later on (which essentially is no different to TWF's own policy regarding advertisers in that you cannot be held responsible for future problems/individual offers).

I do wish @MuWo all the best in getting some resolve from this, personally I would attempt to try establishing if these people are at the address mentioned then seeking legal action to try to recover your money.

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Hi Gary,

Apologies, my statement might have come wrong, or that lacks further explanation.

Yes, I understand that, which is why I said we could, but that does not certainly make that we'll do it right away. It would depend if we could find that tastefultraders is in fact not in any way related to the culprit. As tasteful has also been a member of TWF since 2010, there is doubt that they are connected to the company. However the ticket has also mentioned that MuWo has also tried contacting tasteful because of this issue and received no reply, coincidentally the last time tasteful logged in was last 20th of April. Having tasteful banned will only result if they did not try to cooperate on this matter, least not even reply to this thread. In what we could see here, tasteful is the last person we hope to reply here to find out who the real culprit is, but not even replying to the matter might mean something's off.

Simply, tasteful will only be banned if they do not reply to this thread. But of course, we prefer a reply better to at least help MuWo in his case.

Simply, tasteful will only be banned if they do not reply to this thread. But of course, we prefer a reply better to at least help MuWo in his case.

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Still sounds harsh in my opinion to be guilty until proven innocent, what if they haven't seen/don't see this thread? What if they have nothing they can add or do to resolve the situation? What if they stopped responding because they didn't know the answers or couldn't help/advise further? To be honest most people would stop responding when being accused of being a scammer, especially if they were only trying to do someone a favour!

Often if this happens whatever is said will not be enough unless it's "I'll get/give you your money back", which of course can only happen if they were indeed responsible for taking it to begin with, otherwise a person can respond backwards and forwards all day every day to no avail which is a waste of everyone's time.

I don't even know tasteful traders, but their IP certainly puts them nowhere near the registered company address mentioned above.

Again, if these are the potential repercussions of, and general attitude towards people trying to help then why should anyone bother?

How about contacting @Tastefultraders privately to determine your answers as opposed to using a thread to portray your threats? As in "we have contacted tasteful traders and will let you know what we find out", especially at this stage.

Sorry but this attitude toward members is wrong in my opinion, in fact the members name should also be removed or post edited unless it's established that they are more involved than their PM implies, because unless they are the supplier they cannot be a "bad supplier", if it turns out to be proven otherwise then fair enough, but at this stage it is not established any further than them trying to help, which if you look they have recommended several other suppliers previously, surely they cannot be involved with them all?

I know the forum needs to cover itself to a degree and that it's a business, but at which point is it that it's not really there for the members anymore?

Edited to add: this point is not necessarily only regarding tasteful traders (as mentioned I don't even know them), it's more the principal of the situation in general and the way in which it's being handled.

Still sounds harsh in my opinion to be guilty until proven innocent, what if they haven't seen/don't see this thread? What if they have nothing they can add or do to resolve the situation? What if they stopped responding because they didn't know the answers or couldn't help/advise further? To be honest most people would stop responding when being accused of being a scammer, especially if they were only trying to do someone a favour!

Often if this happens whatever is said will not be enough unless it's "I'll get/give you your money back", which of course can only happen if they were indeed responsible for taking it to begin with, otherwise a person can respond backwards and forwards all day every day to no avail which is a waste of everyone's time.

I don't even know tasteful traders, but their IP certainly puts them nowhere near the registered company address mentioned above.

Again, if these are the potential repercussions of, and general attitude towards people trying to help then why should anyone bother?

How about contacting @Tastefultraders privately to determine your answers as opposed to using a thread to portray your threats? As in "we have contacted tasteful traders and will let you know what we find out", especially at this stage.

Sorry but this attitude toward members is wrong in my opinion, in fact the members name should also be removed or post edited unless it's established that they are more involved than their PM implies, because unless they are the supplier they cannot be a "bad supplier", if it turns out to be proven otherwise then fair enough, but at this stage it is not established any further than them trying to help, which if you look they have recommended several other suppliers previously, surely they cannot be involved with them all?

I know the forum needs to cover itself to a degree and that it's a business, but at which point is it that it's not really there for the members anymore?

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Sorry if that puts you off Gary. Well yes, maybe I'm a bit too harsh on this one (it's a little frustrating really when we can't do anything especially on a case this big). Anyway, yes. I have emailed tastefultraders as soon as we received the ticket to address to this issue. There were no threats to that email whatsoever, just asking him what could he provide to help the fellow. I am assuming that they have no knowledge that this happened anyway, but a reply would mean something that could give some light.

Again, if all these seems to negative, I do have to apologise. This is the first time a case like this happened on our side and the assumptions that the culprit "might" be lurking within the forums intensifies the situation. We have done all the checks necessary and all leaves down to tastefultrader's reply to us on whether they could provide further information regarding the culprit.

Bit what further evidence can they provide regarding "the culprit" other than that publicly available which the op has already?

I understand the thought that a scammer may be lurking in the forums, but they said "I think", which means if they are they do not know their username.

As I have already mentioned to @MuWo above, their best course of action is to determine whether that is their real trading address.

This is quite simple to establish, just write to them (or get a friend or relative to), with a name, address & phone number they do not know asking for them to contact you about buying from them for a new business you're starting, if they're not trading from there they won't respond, but if they do then you have determined the address is correct.

Do NOT send the first letter as yourself asking for money/goods as this would have more chance of being ignored.

If the address is found to be correct then seek legal advice regarding starting proceedings to try to get your money back.

Waiting for anything else is only delaying a process which can be quite drawn out anyway.

Bit what further evidence can they provide regarding "the culprit" other than that publicly available which the op has already?

I understand the thought that a scammer may be lurking in the forums, but they said "I think", which means if they are they do not know their username.

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Really? Because I think he said "I think no website for them though".
And he also said this: "No problem mate, just to let you know do not deal with people like iffy on the forum - they are not advertisors so can easily be scammers you must be careful only deal with registered advertisors on here.
The contact i gave you was registered on here so it meant the forum verified his business before he could sell anything - thats why i used him because i was sure he was legitimate"
This doesn't sound like he is not sure whether that guy was advertiser here, in fact he was sure, so the question is why was I given only email address instead of the username, which did not give me any chance of contacting Carl through this forum? Another question is why I didn't ask that question then, but the answer to this is quite simple - because I was being a fool!
I got caught off guard, I trade a lot with China, and I'm very suspicious when it comes to those deals, for some reason I assumed I'm safe doing business with British, which obviously was plain stupid thing to do, and very unfair to Chinese too.
Now, I realize I'm accusing Tastefultraders without hard evidence, perhaps that's my frustration speaking out and at some point I will have to apologize for it, but right now I just cannot find any reasonable explanation why he did not respond to any of my messages. One does not have to visit this forum to know that they have messages, correct? He must have gotten emails from this site, with info that he got messages, so I would have to believe that someone involved with trading over internet did not check his email for over a week!? Honestly I find that extremely hard to believe.
You also must understand that to me 4000 pounds is A LOT of money, and this loss is severe and devastating to me and my business, so at the moment I don't really care much about being politically correct.
To me it looks like this: one guy acted like he really wanted me to do business with another guy. One of them ripped me of and both of them disappeared. So until Tastefultraders speaks up and provides Carl's forum user name I will tend to think he was a part of this scam.

Really? Because I think he said "I think no website for them though".
And he also said this: "No problem mate, just to let you know do not deal with people like iffy on the forum - they are not advertisors so can easily be scammers you must be careful only deal with registered advertisors on here.
The contact i gave you was registered on here so it meant the forum verified his business before he could sell anything - thats why i used him because i was sure he was legitimate"
This doesn't sound like he is not sure whether that guy was advertiser here, in fact he was sure, so the question is why was I given only email address instead of the username, which did not give me any chance of contacting Carl through this forum? Another question is why I didn't ask that question then, but the answer to this is quite simple - because I was being a fool!
I got caught off guard, I trade a lot with China, and I'm very suspicious when it comes to those deals, for some reason I assumed I'm safe doing business with British, which obviously was plain stupid thing to do, and very unfair to Chinese too.
Now, I realize I'm accusing Tastefultraders without hard evidence, perhaps that's my frustration speaking out and at some point I will have to apologize for it, but right now I just cannot find any reasonable explanation why he did not respond to any of my messages. One does not have to visit this forum to know that they have messages, correct? He must have gotten emails from this site, with info that he got messages, so I would have to believe that someone involved with trading over internet did not check his email for over a week!? Honestly I find that extremely hard to believe.
You also must understand that to me 4000 pounds is A LOT of money, and this loss is severe and devastating to me and my business, so at the moment I don't really care much about being politically correct.
To me it looks like this: one guy acted like he really wanted me to do business with another guy. One of them ripped me of and both of them disappeared. So until Tastefultraders speaks up and provides Carl's forum user name I will tend to think he was a part of this scam.

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To be honest where the "I think" belongs is difficult because of the lack of a comma, and again I'm not defending tasteful traders and I do not know them, just saying how the message Erik shared looked to me.

The most important thing for you to do for now is to establish if their registered address is correct as then you can maybe start legal proceedings to try to get your products or money back.

To be honest where the "I think" belongs is difficult because of the lack of a comma, and again I'm not defending tasteful traders and I do not know them, just saying how the message Erik shared looked to me.

The most important thing for you to do for now is to establish if their registered address is correct as then you can maybe start legal proceedings to try to get your products or money back.

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In my opinion it's his other messages that show to which part of sentence that "I think" belongs. Clearly Tastefultraders was sure that Carl Lister was advertising on this forum, no doubt about it. So it's quite simple: if Carl Lister was indeed advertising then there is a possibility that Tastfultraders' intentions were good and harmless, if however Carl Lister was never an advertiser on this forum, then Tasteful would be linked directly to the scam.

As for your advise, I do appreciate it, although I'm almost sure that the registered address is bogus, so is the whole company.
There is just one problem with your suggestion, I have no idea how I could do that

Bank account number seems to be the most important trace, unless it was opened using stolen or fake id...
Any kind of help from you guys will be valuable and highly appreciated, this scam hit me really hard, I already reported it to the Police, just wonder if there are any chances to recover my money.

If the company are unresponsive and refusing to help your next step should be to talk to a solicitor for advice as your best chance of getting anything is through a court, although sometimes a letter from a solicitor can be enough, like you say £4000 is a lot of money and I do wish you all the best in getting some kind of resolution.

If the company are unresponsive and refusing to help your next step should be to talk to a solicitor for advice as your best chance of getting anything is through a court, although sometimes a letter from a solicitor can be enough, like you say £4000 is a lot of money and I do wish you all the best in getting some kind of resolution.

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What about the Police? I'm 100% positive this was well thought and planned scam, so don't you think they (thieves) will not care much for letters from solicitor? Also I'm a few thousand miles away, do you think I can contact solicitor by email?

What about the Police? I'm 100% positive this was well thought and planned scam, so don't you think they (thieves) will not care much for letters from solicitor? Also I'm a few thousand miles away, do you think I can contact solicitor by email?

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The police can certainly be involved if it's a planned scam but they are more limited as to what they can do.

Regarding a letter from a solicitor, as long as it's backed with fact and you would have a genuine case in court if they did ignore it then follow up and take it to court, the courts are the only ones who can order them to pay the money back.

However I'm not completely certain how it would work with you being in Poland, but surely there must be Polish solicitors/lawyers who may be able to advise?

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